The CFTC and SEC have both filed charges against Jeffery Alan Lowrance (formerly of Texas) and his New Zealand-based firm First Capital Savings and Loan. Both agencies allege that Lowrance ran a million-dollar Ponzi scheme via First Capital, fraudulently soliciting and subsequently misappropriating money ostensibly to be traded in off-exchange foreign currency exchange (“forex”) contracts. Lowrance fled the country last August after he was charged in connection with another forex fraud scheme, and was extradited from Lima, Peru late last week.

According to the CFTC and SEC, from 2008 to the present the defendants solicited at least $1 million from thirty-six individuals by promising them monthly returns of 1.1-4.5% on their investment, to be generated by successful forex trading. Not only was Lowrance not an experience forex trader, he never actually attempted to trade any of it. Instead, he used the funds to make Ponzi payments to earlier investors, for personal expenses, and to fund a religious newspaper called USA Tomorrow. To deceive investors, he gave them access to fake account statements showing the promised returns.

Last August, Lowrance was hit with federal fraud charges for his association with First Capital and an earlier project, Mentor Investing Group Inc. He fled the country and lived as a fugitive until police arrested him in Lima, Peru in February. He was extradited to face forex fraud charges in the United States late last week.

The CFTC and SEC are seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, restitution, civil monetary penalties, and trading and registration bans.

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Washington, DC – FIA and the FIA Principal Traders Group (together, FIA) today urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to retain the current $8 billion de minimis threshold for swap...London—6 August 2018 — FIA today announced the publishing of a fully updated and comprehensive set of industry standard contractual terms for derivatives clearing – the FIA Terms of Business 2018...On July 31, the U.S. Treasury Department released a report on financial technology and innovation. The report is the fourth and final in a series drafted in response to an executive order issued...Each year FIA organizes an Innovators Pavilion at the Futures & Options Expo in Chicago to showcase fintech startups that are offering forward-thinking solutions for the global capital markets...FIA submitted a letter to the European Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority on July 27 expressing opposition to the idea of allowing public entities to be exempt from...Washington, D.C.—July 25, 2018—FIA today released its half-year 2018 report on trading activity in the global exchange-traded derivatives market....
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Fraudsters continue to impersonate FINRA executives, offering bogus investment "guarantees" to investors as part of an advance-fee scam. Read more about the lengths these fraudsters go to in creating a false sense of security. […]